Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen, let me assure you that
I have no intention of availing myself of this opportunity to make
a speech. In any case, I think this would be quite beyond me this
morning. I shall confine myself – with your kind indulgence – to
making a few general remarks, which I hope will be brief, in order
to explain why I shall vote in favour of the Amendment put forward
by Mr Teitgen and Mr de Menthon, in the same way as I have made
up my mind to support any Motion which will enable the Council of
Europe to emerge from the period of negative policy and stagnation
into which it has entered, and in the same spirit and purpose as
I should have yesterday voted for the Motion by Mr de Félice, despite
the fact that I have myself never been a federalist.

Ladies and Gentlemen, from the Presidential Chair occupied
by me until yesterday, I noticed things which often made me very
sad. I have been continually surprised at the amount of talent expended
in this Assembly in explaining why something should not be done.
To-day everyone has his own good reasons why he should not make
any more. Some Germans will not support a united Europe until the
whole of Germany is united. Some Belgians will do so only if the.
United Kingdom joins in. Some Frenchmen are against a unification
of Europe if it entails their being left to negotiate direct with
the Germans. The British will not form part of a united Europe so
long as they have not found a solution acceptable both to themselves
and the Commonwealth. Our Scandinavian friends look on at all this
in a somewhat disillusioned and disinterested manner, or so it appears.

I am quite convinced that if a quarter of the energy expended
in this Assembly in saying “no” were devoted to saying “yes” to
something positive when it is forthcoming, we should not find ourselves
in the position we are to-day. (Applause.)

“I am convinced of your complete sincerity, my friend, but what I am equally convinced of is that when you say ‘I am a good European,’ you, evidently, do not mean the same thing as I do when I say it. We just look at things in quite different ways.

During this last Session I also found out something else of
a more serious and distressing nature. Ladies and Gentlemen, I do
not wish to hurt anyone’s feelings, and I should like to use most
parliamentary language, but I have come to the firm conclusion that
in this Assembly there are not more than sixty Representatives who really
believe in the need for a united Europe. Of course, everyone proclaims
that he is a good European, and only yesterday Mr Gordon Waiker,
with a certain amount of vexation, again said so, in reply to a
speech by Mr Paul Reynaud. Let me, however, at once say to him:
“I am convinced of your complete sincerity, my friend, but what
I am equally convinced of is that when you say ‘I am a good European,’
you, evidently, do not mean the same thing as I do when I say it.
We just look at things in quite different ways. If it were not somewhat presumptuous
on my part to do so, I should even say that our present respective
points of view in looking at history are not the same.”

It is my impression – I may be exaggerating slightly, but
not very much – that a number of our colleagues are wondering whether
what we are doing serves any very useful purpose. And I, personally,
wonder whether they do not really think: “is it of any great interest?”

Now there, you see, is just where our points of view completely
differ. Whereas some of us are scarcely concerned at ail whether
the work done here is necessary or useful, others among us consider
what we set about doing as something vital and urgently necessary.

I admire those who can remain cairn in the face of the present
state of Europe. One could be terribly blunt about that if we were
not obliged to be so parliamentary. Nevertheless, just cast your
minds back for a moment over recent years and ask yourselves what
Europe was like only a matter of fifty years ago. I do not ask you
to go back to the days of its former splendour. How can those who,
whether they come from Rome, Athens, Paris or London, remember what
their countries were like and what their capitals stood for in the
world and compare it with the state we are all in to-day, possibly
remain so cairn and collected in the fact of events?

The Europe we are speaking of here is a Europe which we have,
in the first place, allowed to be rent asunder. Poland, Czechoslovakia,
Hungary, the Balkan States and Eastern Germany no longer exist.
The Europe we are discussing here is a Europe against which both
Asia and Africa are to-day in revolt, and the greatest and most
powerful among us, even to-day, is being defied in Iran and Egypt.
The Europe we are speaking of to-day is one that for five years
has been living in fear of the Russians and on the charity of the
Americans.

In the face of ail this we remain impassive, as if history
were standing still and as if we had decades at our disposal quietly
to change our whole outlook, do away with customs barriers, abandon
selfish nationalistic viewpoints, as if we had all Eternity before
us.

There, Ladies and Gentlemen, you have the substance of the
conflicting views obtaining in this Assembly. We believe that, if
we wish to save this old Continent of ours, including Great Britain
as well as the other countries, it is absolutely essential that
we should set about creating a united Europe. Many of you give us
the impression that you are not giving any thought to this matter.
Mr Gordon Walker has stated: “I am a good European and I assure
you that I wish to cooperate with you.” But what has he repeatedly
told us during this past fortnight? He has said this: “Well, let
us go to work together, let us support Governmental agreements and
let us try to increase their number and make them better!”

Now that may be one way of achieving a united Europe, although
I do not myself very clearly see what it means. Do you, however,
really believe that in order to support Governmental agreements
it was necessary to build this House of Europe and convene twice
a year two hundred European Members of Parliament? Do you not think
that our respective Governments are quite capable of looking after
governmental agreements without our help? When you speak of the
most interesting governmental agreements which have been concluded
in recent years, you mention O.E.E.C. and E.P.U., in which our Assembly
had no part whatsoever.

If, in effect, this is going to represent all the cooperation
to be expected from some people towards establishing a united Europe,
then, quite frankly, I feel it would be better to do away with all
this machinery than to lull people into believing that something
important is being accomplished – all those people who, when after
each Session they take stock of the progress we have made in our
work, are bound to become more and more disillusioned.

During this past fortnight we have let slip every opportunity
afforded to us. In the first place, we have failed to profit in
a courageous manner from the frank and categorical statements made
to us by all the British delegates. Of course, we must again point
out to them – and I apologise for doing so – that we came here with
a certain amount of hope. We thought that the political change which
had taken place in Britain would provide us with a new opportunity
of closer cooperation. We anxiously awaited what the Conservative
Government representatives were going to tell us, and we also impatiently
awaited what the Labour representatives, who had now become the
Opposition, were going to confide to us.

You have never been – and I say this to your credit – more
categorical and definite in your statements, in telling us that,
while fully appreciating what a united Europe meant to us, you would
never follow us along this road or along these fines!

I say this not without a certain amount of disappointment
and bitterness, but in no way, in a vindictive spirit. Those statements
that we were waiting for, on which we had counted and in which we
had placed some of our hopes did not come to pass; we ought then
to have been courageous enough to face up to the blunt fast confronting
us.

Gentlemen, beware. We continental Europeans have said a number
of times that we did net understand everything the British told
us about the Commonwealth and its difficulties, but sometimes –
and here let me speak to you quite frankly – we had the feeling
that these difficulties which you explained to us badly and invoked
unceasingly constituted some kind of pretext rather than any valid
reason. We had the feeling that we could not reckon on your cooperation
on account of the Commonwealth. But be very careful! Sometime hence, public
opinion will say that Continental Europeans are using the absence
of Britain as an excuse not to create a United Europe. We shall
then lose, in the eyes of those who had placed so much hope in the
European idea and of those whose only hope it perhaps is at the
present time, our entire good name and forfeit all the confidence
they may have had in us.

From the very beginning of this session my mind was made up
and my attitude clear and unequivocal. I do not say: establish a
united Europe, taking your line from Britain – since we should not
really be establishing a united Europe by basing ourselves at the
present time on a Conservative or a Labour Britain; on the contrary,
we should be giving up the idea – but I do say that we should courageously
face up to the facts as they are and take a risk.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I shall not go as far as to say that
none is more conscious than I of the risks we are running at the
present time in trying to establish a united continental Europe.
Why “none more than I”? I assume that all who are desirous of setting
up a united continental Europe are fully cognisant of the risks
of such a policy. But what policy of any importance does not include
some kind of risk? Our whole life is nothing but a constant process
of choosing between one risk and another, and those who have never
risked anything in their lives or in their policy have never achieved
anything outstanding.

Instead of taking up a courageous attitude in the face of
the new British position, we have tried to find formulas expressing
unanimity, which are merely formulas testifying to our weakness.
During the past few days further misunderstandings have arisen concerning
serious problems, which have enabled some members to imagine that
the British “no” was not entirely unqualified and that by waiting
a little longer and remaining inactive and passive we might eventually
see them join us.

And then yesterday we let slip the opportunity of our lives,
the opportunity of the life of our European Assembly. Yesterday's
Sitting was indeed an historic one, and what makes me so sad is
that it was only historic up to the time the Ministers ceased speaking.
When it was our turn to speak, I saw nothing more whatsoever that
bore an historic stamp. (Smiles.)

We saw Ministers who came to address us and who for the first
time came not only to explain their policy but to seek our support
and encouragement. It was indeed a historic event for four Ministers
of four European countries to come here and tell us: “we are in
favour of a united Europe and are prepared to try to achieve it because
we are impelled towards it by a number of facts, on which I shall
not dwell, by a kind of fatality and logic of history. We are prepared
to fight, if need be, to establish a political authority in the
sphere of defence and foreign affairs”. We were fully conscious
of the stirring nature of their speeches. What they came to tell
us, in effect, was: “we are up against difficulties in our respective
countries and we have to overcome obstacles and break down all manner
of old prejudices and ancient traditions. What we ask is that you,
the Representatives of. Europe, should give us a message to assist
and strengthen us in our task”.

And what was our reply? We gave none at all! We drew up and
adopted a Motion whose Rapporteur, in order to re-assure certain
members of the Assembly and achieve a. miserable majority, did not
even dare to state that it aimed at creating a real international
political authority. He allowed doubt to continue to subsist and
even so; despite this, a large number of Representatives voted against
the Motion. We referred the four Ministers who had come here to
ask us to help them back to a Committee of Ministers whose decisions
have to be unanimous; we therefore know that it will not be able
to assist them.

What should we have done? At that historic moment we ought
to have gone beyond the Committee of Ministers of the Council of
Europe, and, addressing ourselves to the four Ministers or to the
six countries which are prepared to found a European Coal and Steel
Community, have told them: “we are now going to set to work without
delay to explain to you how we suggest that this European Community
should be operate.”

We were unable to do this since we knew that if we took up
that attitude, not a single motion would have obtained a two-thirds
majority.

We were again obliged to adopt another of those compromises
which under present circumstances are of no interest at all.

I wonder whether you realise how – if I may say so – ridiculous
it is to ask the Committee of Ministers, comprising twelve Ministers
with whom we are familiar and whose views we know, to organise conferences
for the purpose of setting up international political Authorities,
whereas almost half of those Ministers have already stated quite
formally that they are not in favour of this, and when it is borne
in mind that each of them possesses, within the Committee of Ministers,
a right of veto. If that is ail we are capable of doing, then I
truly believe that we are at the end of our tether and I do not
consider that I am being too pessimistic in saying so.

You see, I have the impression that we are dying of our own
discretion. And how much discretion there is in this Assembly! (Smiles) How very reasonable people
can be! How careful they are in their speeches! How clever they
are at all matters of procedure and how much talent they display
in discussing a word or a comma! Ladies and Gentlemen, it is frightful
– your moderation is nothing short of suicidal.

I remember one day reading in Bernard Shaw's Joan of Arc a witticism I have never
forgotten and which, alas! I am obliged to make use of from time
to time. This is the occasion. Joan of Arc appears before Charles VII
– and this is not intended to represent any historical analogy.
France is occupied by the English, and Charles VII has taken refuge
at Bourges; he has become the little king of Bourges, and no one
trusts him any longer. Then Joan appears, with nothing but her faith
and her hope. She speaks. Everybody makes fun of her, including
the generals, the bishops and the lawyers, until a youth who is
to be her companion in battle and, let us not forget, in victory
as well, says, while everyone around her keeps on repeating that
she is out of her mind, that she is mad: “we want a few mad people
now. See where the sane ones have landed us!”

Well, from time to time one feels in this Assembly as if one
would like to be a little mad, to cast one’s discretion and reason
aside, to believe that, in order to build great things in this world,
a little hope, a little confidence and a little faith achieve more
than ail the discretion of formal routine procedure.

Now why do I ask you to vote for Mr Teitgen’s Amendment? I
ask you to do so because it is something positive and because it
explains clearly, much more clearly than the two Articles of the
Statute to which it applies, the goal which some of us are trying
to attain.

I am sure Mr Teitgen and Mr de Menthon will agree with me
when I say that their idea is not entirely new and that its original
author was Mr Mackay, who incorporated it in a Protocol which the
Assembly has too often treated with disdain. It was unfortunately,
not realised that at that time Mr Mackay, and now Mr Teitgen and Mr de
Menthon, have provided us with the solution to a problem we have
been up against from the beginning.

What a splendid day that was when, still full of enthusiasm
and illusions the Assembly adopted that resolution almost unanimously
and we asked for limited Authorities possessing real powers! Well,
for a matter of three years we have been going round and round the
question, trying to find out where it would lead us and what it implied,
and seeking this or that appropriate formula.

The formula now proposed by Mr Teitgen has the great advantage
of providing a de facto solution
to the problem.

When we tried to define a limited Authority we found that
h was not possible, to do so, since there is no such thing as a
theoretical definition of a limited Authority. The effect of Mr Teitgen’s
Amendment would be to confer executive power on the Assembly as
and when the practical problems arising in connection with the Specialised
Authorities came to be resolved. There is, therefore, no further
need for a theoretical definition of limited powers. Each time a
Specialised Authority is set up, and a particular problem solved,
little by little the Assembly's executive power will have de facto come into being and developed.

Not everything would be, even then, as we would wish it, but
we should have at least achieved something positive, and that is
why I shall vote for the Amendment by Mr Teitgen and Mr de Menthon.
I shall vote for it in the same way as I shall vote for anything
which at the present time, without seeking vain compromise, shows those
who are watching us from outside or who report our debates that
there are still a number of Representatives to this Assembly who
take the problem of building up a united Europe seriously and that
we are prepared to sacrifice for the sake of Europe as a whole things
to which we are attached as much as any other country in the world,
namely a part of our national sovereignty and, in some cases, even
– as I have always plainly stated – certain material interests.

To-day, whether we like it or not, interest in the cause of
a united Europe no longer lies, I am sorry to say, within this Assembly.
Those who wish to continue along the road we have followed in the
past few years now realise that the prospects here have become almost
hopeless, that we must look beyond these walls and that it is again by
having recourse to propaganda and by rousing public opinion, showing
it what the real position is and how it can save itself if it wishes
to avoid disaster, that the real solution to the problem will be
found.

It is because. I have had this profound, and, believe me,
bitter feeling during the past two weeks that I wished to resume
my complete freedom and to take once more my place amongst the true
protagonists of a united Europe in order to say to them ' let us
make haste, for we are losing ground. We can no longer do to-day
what we could have done a year or two ago, for people are beginning
to make fun of us and are speaking of our inability to achieve anything.
There is not a moment to lose if we are to save ourselves!